Where are my keys?

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
41

Rilchiam… your faith is touching. And evidence that we’ve never met. I’ve spent a lifetime trying to learn how discipline myself to consistent behaviors. The results are actually the chaos.

I hesitate to bring this up, because I know it will trigger the deniers and I kinda don’t have time, but it turns out I have ADD. Yeah. I thought that, too. So did my last therapist, who, when referring to it, used air quotes. Then I explained how it was first noticed as a possibility by a prior therapist: I was a lifelong near-chain smoker. 26 years of the extra-long ciggies burning almost constantly. Then I moved in with my ex and could only smoke outside. So I would get up in the morning and sit for 90 minutes to 3 hours chain smoking and reading books and magazines nonstop.

Then I quit smoking.

Immediately I lost the ability to sit and read, especially novels, and I have never really recovered it. I’m much better with non-fiction, which doesn’t demand a linear progression. (I irecently read the first novel I can remember reading in 5 years, after a lifetime of reading a few novels a month. “The Road” - damned compelling. Incredible book. Hope they don’t screw the movie up.)

When I reported that to my earlier therapist not long after I quit, she immediately thought of ADD, because nicotine is actually a powerful stimulant, and stimulants are the only things that genuinely work for ADD. Take away my stimulants and my brain jsut scattered completely. I pooh-poohed her, and didn’t actually see a shrink and get medicated for another… 5 years? 4? Something like that. Anyway, when my air-quote therapist heard that, he apologized and said yeah, I’ve got ADD.

Made sense, the day I started smoking I immediately became a pack-a-day plus. Seriously, smoked over a pack the first 24 hours that I smoked. My brain LIKED it.

Adderall helps, but it’s an ongoing struggle, and I have a lifetime of ADD-driven habits of being that I fight all the time.

And all this to say, ADD is not what people assume, not at all. It’s more about the executive functions of the brain, the ability to plan for the future, goal set, manage time and tasks, recognize and respond to priorities, oh…short term memory! HUGE deficit in ADD people, stuff like that. Once I really started to delve, I realized I don’t just have ADD, I’m pretty much the poster child for it. (And, as with pretty much all low-level disorders of the mind and psyche, it’s just a matter of degree. Everyone is subject to occasional depression; some people are suffering from depression and need to address it. Everyone has issues with procrastination and focus; people with ADD peg the needle and need to address it. And as it happens, our modern lifestyle is creating a kind of situational ADD in a lot of people who never used to have a problem, and our kids are having the same issue, what with the hyperlinking and multi-tasking and 14 ways to twitter and email and telephone and Tivo and on and on. )

Before I knew what it was I would describe it as being Felix Unger trapped in the body of Oscar Madison, which has since been lauded by fellow sufferers as a very good description. We are DESPERATE to be organized, to habitually hang our keys on the same nail when we walk in the door…we would kill to be able to do that.

Good intentions lead straight to hell, you know, and straight to my house. I obsessively collect things to help me organize myself and just multiply my chaos. (I do have a nail for my keyes inside my office door, actually - it’s a nice little board for mail and keys and stuff. I’ve even used it 4 times or so. Want to. Mean to. Wish I could remember to.)

I could go on, but I really need to FOCUS on other things… (another little-known truth about people with ADD is that they are perfectly capable of focusing, in fact, if the subject is interesting to them, they do what’s called hyper-focus, and I’m fantastic at that. It was during a period of severe hyper-focus that my reputation on this board was formed, actually: between the 2000 election and Gore’s concession, I literally did nothing but watch television and debate y’all here. Really. Oh, yeah, I slept and ate, but that’s all. Which means of course that I lost touch with priorities, goals, etc. )

42

So you ADDed your keys? Now I’m not sure you ever Had keys.

43

Nah, just did what I always do, which is enter house-release keys from hand wherever I am without taking the slightest notice of it.

I think it’s actually the short term memory issue. I am probably conscious in the moment of where I have set them down, then I instantly forget. My STM problem can be so severe that I can lose what I’m thinking about in the time it take my head to turn. Happens all the time. Drives me nuts.

On the other hand, when it matters and its something I have a facility for, such as important conversations, I’m like the proverbial elephant. Precise details going back years. Freaky.

44

Has anyone used one of these or something like it? (Key-finder keychain)

45

Ahem.

46

Look in the car,on the floor of the car and between the seats.Look everywhere you already looked. Give us a hint of the last thing you did with your car. Was in grocery shopping, in that case look in the fridge and freezer, don’t forget the crispers. Look in the kitchen cabinets. Look in your purse again and check your coat pockets for any holes to make sure they didn’t fall in the lining.
Check the bathroom draws and cupboards . Do you have pets? Look in their food bags and by the door you let them out.

47

You haven’t been outside in a week? Is that normal or are you sick??

48

You have to ask the purple men.

They were on a Twilight Zone episode. Not the old, original Twilight Zone with Rod Serling but the newer one that was on several years ago that was in color.

A couple awake to hear people in their house and go downstairs to find men dressed in purple rearranging things. Their supervisor is embarrassed and upset that they are seen by the couple but the supervisor explains. It seems that in the time between minutes of the day, the scene has to be re-set by the purple men. They go outside and he shows them as an example–2 cars approach each other on the street and come close then stop. The purple men hit the front of both cars with hammers, etc. This is “between minutes”. In the next minute, both cars are damaged; they just had an accident…

The man of the house asks if the purple men ever make a mistake. The supervisor admits that, yes, sometimes they do. He said did you ever KNOW you left something somewhere (like keys on a table) and when you come back they are just not there. You walk way and while you are gone the purple men, in between the next minute, correct the mistake and when you look there again, the keys are there.

Ever since I saw that episode, which amused me to no end, when I am looking for something and can’t find it, I walk out of the room and talk out loud to the purple men telling them I need to find such and such and to put it back. WORKS EVERY TIME! NO JOKE!!!:smiley:

49

I thought I was the only one who remembered that episode.

50

I’ve been outside, I just haven’t gone anyplace.

And at this point it is no longer normal.

I’m trying not to get panicky, but I’m really running out of possibilities. And I haven’t been able to find the backup versions, either.

:eek::frowning:

51

I sometimes find previously lost things when I clean house. Since you’re not going anywhere anyway, you could always give that a try… :slight_smile:

52

Well, found spares. But my keyring has a bunch of other stuff…wah! I wanna find my keys!

53

Have you talked to the purple men yet?

You can’t whine until you try that. :wink:

54

My flatmate had a (fairly cheap) variant of that, but she took it off her keyring pretty quickly since it squarked at the slightest provocation (e.g. ordinary background noise while driving).

55

If I knew the last place you went in your car, I might be able to help. I lose things all the time and they show up in strange places.

56

My dad also had one of these (given to him by my smartass but well-intentioned mother).

The first day, it was great fun to sneak a few claps into an ordinary conversation and watch him jump out of his skin when his pocket started beeping.

The second day, he started leaving his keys on the shelf. :stuck_out_tongue: